In the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday, 20 COVID-19 deaths were recorded in Jamaica, pushing the tally to 1,666. I have a baby sister, a mother, and two sisters with asthma, and a grandmother with hypertension and diabetes. One resident of Grant’s Pen bluntly told his community colleagues that he was prepared to become vaccinated: “Mek sure you vaccinate! My friend in St Croix told me that if you slip you slide.”ĭwyer confessed that he was eager to see entertainment booming again as the lockdowns had been taking a toll. Promoter of popular party event Boom Sunday, usually held in Grant’s Pen, Anthony Dwyer, for his part, told residents that COVID-19 is real and serious and urged them to “do the right thing”. On one of his stops yesterday, explaining that vaccination would soon be readily accessible in the community, Holness told residents that this was the ticket for individuals who wanted to “party from 5 am to 5 am the next day, if you so choose”. God brought me through it and the same God will deliver me through COVID-19. She explained the source of her faith: “Last year I died and came back twice in the hospital with kidney issues. I take the necessary precautions, though.” Holness continued his encouragement for vaccination, but Brown remained strident: “If persons are willing to take it, they must know the relationship they have with God. Particular reference was made to Revelations 13: 17-18 in the Bible: “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast or the number of his name… Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man and his number is six hundred threescore and six.” I have heard too many stories of pastors in churches preaching out against the vaccine and at the same time members of their congregations pass away,” Holness said.īrown, in response, pointed to the book of Revelations in the Bible, adding that, while the vaccines may not be the “mark of the beast”, as some people have said publicly, she thought they were “definitely paving the way for it to be introduced”. “We do need to have prayers, and as a nation we need to humble ourselves before God. The Member of Parliament for St Andrew West Central attempted to pull on the heartstrings of Linnette Brown, a Grant’s Pen resident who declared that she will not take the vaccine:
God is going to protect you, and the way in which you are being protected is that he has created man with the intelligence to create a medicine that can cure you,” he explained.
The prime minister went to speak directly to those who have been described as naysayers: “There is an argument that sometimes man goes too far and tries to change up nature, but taking the vaccine does not in any way reduce your faith in God. God created it through man and gave him the intelligence.” There is nothing unnatural about the vaccines. Said he: “People are saying the vaccines are unnatural.
Holness toured several Corporate Area neighbourhoods in which preparations are in high gear to kick-start community-level vaccination and appealed to residents that having all eligible individuals inoculated against COVID-19 is the only way the country will return to some semblance of normality. Jamaica Observer:– MANY who preach doom for individuals who are in support of vaccines to guard against COVID-19 listened attentively to Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday as he tried to convince them that, no matter the brand, they were made through knowledge given to scientists by God.